If anyone still thought of Paul Krugman as a serious economist — that’s probably just Krugman himself — his latest rant on the terrible problem of income inequality should banish the thought. He recently wrote a hand-wringing column bemoaning the fact that some people have much more wealth than others do.
Economists understand that inequality is a natural occurrence and is not harmful because production and exchange is not a zero-sum game. Those who make loads of money do so because they have created things that others want to buy. Demagogues like Krugman want to get people to believe that production and exchange is a zero-sum game where the riches of some are the cause of the comparative poverty of others. They then come up with all sorts of schemes for the government to “redistribute” income.
In this excellent article, Professor George Riesman — a real economist! — takes Krugman apart.
